Some schools see greater returns than others. Still, securing alumni donations is a skill many large universities have down to a science. It’s a task so important that one Washington expert called it critical.

“I would describe it as the foundation of any successful fundraising at a school, college or university,” said John Lippincott, president of the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, a nonprofit that studies advancement trends at colleges and universities.

During a 2010 interview, Lippincott said alumni giving is a critical part of an institution’s development, adding that typically 25 to 30 percent of a school’s donations come from alumni.

Local colleges, like the University of North Florida, Edward Waters College and the University of Florida, say they employ similar techniques to entice graduates to donate. Those techniques include mailings, social media and on-campus events specifically for alumni.

The efforts have paid dividends. Alumni giving at UNF, for example, has topped $339,000 for the past three years.

However, one local university confessed recently that keeping relationships with alumni hasn’t been its strongest point.

Michael Howland, Jacksonville University’s vice president for university advancement, said at his university, “we haven’t done a good job at communicating with our alumni in the past.”

“But we’re starting to now,” he added.

There are 23,500 living JU alumni in the country, Howland said, with 9,000 in Northeast Florida.

Last year 6.7 percent of the total JU alumni donated to their alma mater, Howland said, much lower than the average 13 percent one would find at other schools that JU uses as a benchmark.

While looking for a deeper understanding of their alumni, JU officials hired an outside firm this year to conduct a survey of its graduates.

The survey found that JU had twice as many disconnected or near-disconnected alumni as any other school the firm had conducted surveys for.

Howland gave two reasons JU has had troubles reaching out to graduates. First, between 1989 and 2003, there were cuts to the alumni relations staff.

Second, the university’s alumni publication, The Wave, has only reached 3,000 alumni, meaning more than 20,000 Dolphins had no knowledge of what’s happening at their alma mater.

“And now, we’re looking at having to rebuild all those alumni connections,” Howland said.

Lippincott, the nonprofit president, said there are three steps to gaining alumni donations.

First, he said, make sure the student had a positive experience in college.

Second, make sure the graduate stays connected to the university, whether it’s through volunteering, attending events or working a leadership position at the school.

Finally, Lippincott said, a university should ask recent graduates to donate a small amount to get the alum in the habit of giving.

Faith Hall, UNF’s director of alumni services, said the public university does a good job at keeping in contact with Ospreys.

UNF uses mailings, email and interacting on Facebook and Twitter. The university’s alumni association also has an electronic newsletter that goes out every other week.

The newsletter “is our most important communication tool,” Hall said, because it reaches 30,000 of UNF’s 72,000 alumni worldwide.

Hall said it’s important that UNF keeps in contact with alumni because former students who know what’s happening on campus are more likely to donate.

One of the popular alumni events at UNF is a reception with President John Delaney where he talks about what’s happening on campus. JU should use that idea, Hall said.

“They have a new president and everything, so I’m sure alumni would be very interested in that,” Hall said. “That should be a staple event. Doing that every year would be to their advantage.”

The University of Florida uses some of the same techniques as UNF — magazines, newsletters, social media and email blasts. However, the information they send is tailored to individual groups of alumni.

Tom Mitchell, UF’s vice president for development and alumni affairs, said the Gainesville school has 350,000 alumni worldwide and his staff of 12 reaches 200,000 every year.

Each year, UF hosts hundreds of alumni focus groups, where they locate Gators, by age group, and ask questions like: how often do you get back to campus, how do you receive our alumni information, who was your favorite professor and what was your most memorable event. The alumni staff then takes that information and tailors future communication to the groups’ based on responses.

Getting donations from former students is “absolutely critical” for UF, Mitchell said.

“In this time of difficult economic times and when state support has declined, the alumni is called upon to sustain excellence,” Mitchell said.

“We basically say to them ‘This is your university. You hold it in high regard. Might you assist us in these tough times’.”

For private universities like JU, which don’t receive public money, nailing a steady flow of donations from alumni could serve as a separate source of revenue.

In fact, a 2011 U.S. News and World Report survey showed that many private, liberal arts colleges dominate the list of schools with the highest amount of alumni donations. Princeton University topped the list, followed by Minnesota’s Carlton College.

Carleton pulled in a record $30 million this year from its class of 1962. Part of that success came from the college employing an alumna, Gail Kleven, to make phone calls and ask for money.

After she signed on a donor, she forwarded the person to Carleton’s staff to finalize the details.

Howland, a 1976 JU alum, said it will take a long time, but he hopes JU can turn around its alumni efforts.

To help, the university recently added its Winter Alumni Gathering event, where alumni are invited to come back to campus and attend sporting events. The university has also hired someone to reach out to alumni through social media and Howland said his staff has begun sending out Wave magazine to all 23,500 alumni.

Howland said he hopes that the magazine will reach alumni it has lost touch with years ago.

I graduated from JU in 1998 and the campus has changed significantly since I was there for the better.

There have been some facility upgrades and additional programs. An example would be the Orthodontics program. What happened at FSCJ was basically a scandal. I dont think you can compare JU to what went on there.

I do believe JU needs to do a better job reaching out to graduates. Not only for money but to give us a better idea of what is going on at the school. I think I got something in the mail about homecoming but that was it.

The biggest reason they are disconnected from the alumni is in part the Tipton period of presidency and an inability to know who they are as a university. Small is a plus. The new campaign will spend a lot of money sports not academics. Also, building upgrade and repair is woeful.
Great faculty, great students. The biggest problem is too many "princes" and not enough "serfs" serving the students.

They forget that the alum,by word of mouth,do more for the university than an email blast.

“We basically say to them ‘This is your university. You hold it in high regard. Might you assist us in these tough times’.”

Tough times...... Someone over there is realIy blowing some smoke, I seem to differ on that statement and here is why, the University currently has ADP Program with a majority of the students that are prior military, simply put "veterans" using the Post 9/11 GI Bill or other chapters of it footing the bill overthere, The University has currently 400+ veterans going to school there, at $450 a credit hour (someone please correct me if I'm wrong). No need to do the math here, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how much is coming from the (VA), Now, let me get back to the $450 figure, this is something that just went up this past August, and has been going up every year, while nothing is improving at this school.

With all this Government money flowing around, it might be the making of another FSCJ.

If your considering this, use your educational dollars wisely, remember you only have one shot